Stocks and precious metals bounce around as more earnings come and go, the Fed holds rates steady as expected, and a new Fed chairman is nominated by Mr Trump.

The weekly update covers NVDA's excellent earnings; the A.I. shine which is wearing off; the minutes from the last FOMC meeting (Oct); and the fall of Bitcoin.

A.I. featured large again last week, mainly because it was the key talking point as five of the Mag 7 companies released earnings with mixed results. The FOMC decision also went as expected, although Mr Powell threw some caution into the wind. Global stock markets took it in stride, but the US Treasury market was less happy as yields rose across the curve. Gold was weaker again, and the US Dollar strengthened.

The bottom line is that global stocks ended at or near record highs again, with US Treasury yields slightly higher. The BoE – after a struggle – managed to lower its policy rate. Fitch published an interesting article on tariffs, Apple CEO Tim Cook met with the president, and the recent Pivot podcast interview with Anthony Scaramucci is very interesting.

Markets are at last returning to some sense of normalcy, with the S&P 500 now clawing back all of its losses since the infamous...

Four of the infamous tech giants in the Mag & report earnings today and tomorrow: MSFT, META, AMZN and AAPL. Risk is downside asymmetrical.

This is a very brief update for the Mag 7 stocks for 1Q2025, all of which were down, several sharply. It is not getting better either!

Market volatility is increasing due to erratic US government policies. Bonds, gold, and foreign stocks are the place to hide.

The week started and ended poorly for US stocks, delivering losses for the week. European stocks have been the best performers YtD.